Hold
by The Gemini Sage
Summary: FFVI. A look at the grip Rachel and Locke's guilt still has on him long after the fact compared to the hold of someone he loves. EdgarLocke.


**Notes:** I wasn't sure whether or not to put this one back up, but in the end I decided all it needed was a bit of cleaning up to become passable. That isn't to say it's fantastic, but it's not so terrible that it needs to vanish forever. The basic concept is supposed to be the way guilt and depression affects someone differently than love and support does.

* * *

He was standing in a wide, grassy plain. Houses could be seen in the distance. He recognized them as his own village, and smiled. He turned to walk home. He was naked as the day he was born, but it didn't bother him, oddly enough. It felt natural.

Someone tapped him on the shoulder, and softly called his name.

"Locke..."

Locke turned around. A girl with skin as white as the moon and hair as black as night stood before him. She was naked, too, and smiling, happy to see him. He smiled too, and breathed her name.

"Rachel..."

He reached out to hold her, kiss her, but she stepped back, still smiling.

"No. You can't touch me."

"Why not?" Locke took another step forward, hand outstretched.

"Because," she said pleasantly, "I'm dead, and it's your fault."

Locke froze, his hand in midair.

"_You_ killed me, Locke," she hissed, and the smile was gone. Fangs had sprouted over her lips, causing them to bleed, and her fingernails grew long and pointed. Her hair flew out behind her, grayed, and Locke was hit by the stench of a damp cave and rotting flesh, suddenly feeling his nakedness acutely and wishing he couldn't. Her hands were around his throat, now, squeezing. He couldn't breathe—her hold on him was something he could never break free of—

"Rachel—stop—I'm sorry—!"

"You _killed_ me, Locke! I needed you and you weren't _there_! I'll never let you forget this, I'll never let you forget me, not till you die too...!" She began to scream his name at him as though it were an insult, a curse, and the green field vanished, leaving only a dark abyss. "Locke! Locke! Locke!"

"No," he choked, but he couldn't twist away from the grip she had on him—not just physically. "No!"

"Locke! Locke! Locke!"

"Let me go! Stop! I'm _sorry_, Rache—!"

"Locke! Locke—c'mon, Locke—wake up!"

Locke gasped and sat bolt upright in the bed, his brown eyes flying open, wide with terror. He looked around wildly, for Rachel, for the demon, but his landed only on the person resting in the bed next to him.

"...are you okay?" King Edgar Roni Figaro had turned on the oil lamp and was blinking rapidly, trying to adjust to the light. He laid a hand on his lover's shoulder. It had been years since Rachel's death, but Locke was still woken up in this fashion every once in awhile. He thought it had gotten a little better lately, but...

Locke was tangled in his bedding, and shivering from being cold and terrified. A a chilly sheen of sweat clung to his skin, and the memory of the nightmare clung to his mind, refusing to slip away as nightmares should.

"...sorry," Locke whispered. "Didn't mean to wake you."

"It's okay," Edgar assured him. He hesitated, then pulled Locke into a gentle hug. Locke returned the embrace, closing his eyes. They were both naked from last night's lovemaking, and while it made him feel more vulnerable at first with the memory of the dream, it made him feel secure, too, to know he wasn't naked alone.

"I hate this..." Locke let out a slow breath. He knew it was only a dream, of course he knew that, but it had seemed so real...and the guilt was certainly real. Those dreams tended to blindside him, when he was feeling close to Edgar, almost like Rachel's ghost itself was asking, _How could you forget about me?_

Edgar stroked Locke's hair. "It's okay. It'll get better, over time..."

"But I'm still to blame," Locke said flatly. He squeezed his eyes shut. "Practically killed her, and now I'm moving on without her, I don't deserve to just forget...!"

"Hey, no," Edgar said sternly. "It's not your fault. It was an accident. You know that..."

The words, Edgar thought, were repeated far too often. They could only comfort Locke for a short time before he began blaming himself up again. Edgar's hold on Locke was warm and soothing, and seemed to be putting Locke right back to sleep, but mornign would coem eventually, and it would be back to the daily routine of pretending Locke was only Edgar's bodyguard and nothing more.

It had started out like that, and even when Locke was sharing his room they were still just friends; Edgar had found out the hard way Locke couldn't wake up to a nightmare alone without hurting himself (he tended to fall off the spare bed they'd dragged in for him quite a bit). From there they'd somehow wound-up sharing Edgar's king-sized bed, and once or twice they'd had more pleasant dreams, and both woke up to find it had affected their bodies in embarrassing and awkward ways.

Oddly enough, it was Locke who had suggested that they...take care of it. The way he told it, he couldn't ever replace Rachel with another woman, but he didn't want to be alone forever, so he'd be with a man. Someone else might have been offended, but Edgar understood it despite Locke's inarticulate wording. It was an attempt to let go of the guilt—or to get the guilt to let go of him. Edgar knew this because Locke had said "alone forever," which meant some part of him had quietly accepted he would never find a wake Rachel from death's sleep.

One thing had led to another, and over the course of two years, they had gotten closer and closer. Edgar had stopped flirting with the maids around the castle, and Locke had started calling Figaro Castle "home" every once in awhile.

The nightmares had never left Locke; the hold Rachel had on him could not be broken. He had tried to free himself of the guilt, but as long as she lay there, not truly living or dead, he never would.

But Edgar's hold on Locke would not be broken, either. Maybe he couldn't touch Locke during the day, but it didn't mean he had to let go entirely. Through sheer willpower, Edgar kept Locke alive, and truly living. He comforted him during his nightmares, kept him distracted during the day as best he could, and most importantly, had promised himself he wouldn't let go. Not until this thing with Rachel was settled one way or the other would he let Locke try to stand on his own...she couldn't have him. It wasn't Locke's time to die yet.

Locke drifted back off to sleep in Edgar's arms, and Edgar eased them back down, reaching over to turn the lamp off. Locke would be tired tomorrow, and Rachel would still be on his mind, draining the life and happiness from him, but Locke wouldn't fall.

He had Edgar to hold him.


End file.
